{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_16937/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_16937","id":"gutenberg_16937","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16937","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: French Literature","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Philosophers -- France -- Biography","Vauvenargues, 1715-1747"],"text":"Produced by Paul Murray, Luis Amador and the Online\nDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCRITICAL MISCELLANIES\n\nBY\n\nJOHN MORLEY\n\nVOL. II.\n\nEssay 1: Vauvenargues\n\nLondon\n\nMACMILLAN AND CO., Limited\n\nNEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY\n\n1905\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS OF VOL. II.                                           PAGE\n\nThe influence of Pascal                                           1\n\nVauvenargues holds the balance between him and the\nvotaries of Perfectibility                                        4\n\nBirth, education, and hard life of Vauvenargues                   4\n\nLife in Paris, and friendship with Voltaire                      10\n\nHis religious sentiment                                          12\n\nHis delicacy, reserve, and psychagogic quality                   15\n\nCertain inability to appreciate marked originality               17\n\nCriticisms on Moliere, Racine, and Corneille                     19\n\nComparison with English aphoristic writers and moralists         20\n\nCharacter the key to his theory of greatness                     25\n\nHis exaltation of spontaneous feeling, a protest against\nRochefoucauld and Pascal                                         26\n\nHis plea for a normal sense of human relation, the same          28\n\nHis doctrine of the Will connected with his doctrine of\nCharacter                                                        29\n\nAntipathy to ascetic restrictions                                33\n\nTwo ways of examining character: that followed by\nVauvenargues                                                     34\n\nExamples of his style                                            36\n\nThe beauty of his nature to be read in his face                  40\n\n\n[Transcriber's Note: Footnotes have been moved to end of book.]\n\n\n\n\nVAUVENARGUES.\n\n\nOne of the most important phases of French thought in the great century\nof its illumination is only thoroughly intelligible, on condition that\nin studying it we keep constantly in mind the eloquence, force, and\ngenius of Pascal. He was the greatest and most influential\nrepresentative of that way of viewing human nature and its\ncircumstances, which it was one of the characteristic glories of the\neighteenth century to have rebelled against and rejected. More than a\nhundred years after the publication of the _Pensees_, Condorcet thought\nit worth while to prepare a new edition of them, with annotations,\nprotesting, not without a certain unwonted deference of tone, against\nPascal's doctrine of the base and desperate estate of man. Voltaire also\nhad them reprinted with notes of his own, written in the same spirit of\nvivacious deprecation, which we may be sure would have been even more\nvivacious, if Voltaire had not remembered that he was speaking of the\nmightiest of all the enemies of the Jesuits. Apart from formal and\nspecific dissents like these, all the writers who had drunk most deeply\nof the spirit of the eighteenth century, lived in a constant ferment of\nrevolt against the clear-witted and vigorous thinker of the century\nbefore, who had clothed mere theological mysteries with the force and\nimportance of strongly entrenched propositions in a consistent\nphilosophy.\n\nThe resplendent fervour of Bossuet's declamations upon the nothingness\nof kings, the pitifulness of mortal aims, the crushing ever-ready grip\nof the hand of God upon the purpose and faculty of man, rather filled\nthe mind with exaltation than really depressed or humiliated it. From\nBossuet to Pascal is to pass from the solemn splendour of the church to\nthe chill of the crypt. Besides, Bossuet's attitude was professional, in\nthe first place, and it was purely theological, in the second; so the\nmain stream of thought flowed away and aside from him. To Pascal it was\nfelt necessary that there should be reply and vindication, whether in\nthe shape of deliberate and published formulas, or in the reasoned\nconvictions of the individual intelligence working privately. A syllabus\nof the radical articles of the French creed of the eighteenth century\nwould consist largely of the contradictions of the main propositions of\nPascal. The old theological idea of the fall was hard to endure, but the\nidea of the fall was clenched by such general laws of human nature as\nthis,--that 'men are so necessarily mad, that it would be to be mad by a\nnew form of madness not to be mad;'--that man is nothing but\nmasquerading, lying, and hypocrisy, both in what concerns himself and in\nrespect of others, wishing not to have the truth told to himself, and\nshrinking from telling it to anybody else;[1] that the will, the\nimagination, the disorders of the body, the thousand concealed\ninfirmities of the intelligence, conspire to reduce our discovery of\njustice and truth to a process of haphazard, in which we more often miss\nthe mark than hit.[2] Pleasure, ambition, industry, are only means of\ndistracting men from the otherwise unavoidable contemplation of their\nown misery. How speak of the dignity of the race and its history, when\nwe know that a grain of sand in Cromwell's bladder altered the destinies\nof a kingdom, and that if Cleopatra's nose had been shorter the whole\nsurface of the earth would be different? Imagine, in a word, 'a number\nof men in chains, and all condemned to death; some of them each day\nbutchered in the sight of the others, while those who remain watch their\nown condition in that of their fellows, and eyeing one another in\nanguish and hopelessness, wait their turn; such is the situation of\nman.'[3]\n\nIt was hardly possible to push the tragical side of the verities of life\nbeyond this, and there was soon an instinctive reaction towards\nrealities. The sensations with their conditions of pleasure no less than\nof pain; the intelligence with its energetic aptitudes for the discovery\nof protective and fruitful knowledge; the affections with their large\ncapacities for giving and receiving delight; the spontaneous inner\nimpulse towards action and endurance in the face of outward\ncircumstances--all these things reassured men, and restored in theory to\nthem with ample interest what in practice they had never lost--a\nrational faith and exultation in their own faculties, both of finding\nout truth and of feeling a very substantial degree of happiness. On\nthis side too, as on the other, speculation went to its extreme limit.\nThe hapless and despairing wretches of Pascal were transformed by the\nvotaries of perfectibility into bright beings not any lower than the\nangels. Between the two extremes there was one fine moralist who knew\nhow to hold a just balance, perceiving that language is the expression\nof relations and proportions, that when we speak of virtue and genius we\nmean qualities that compared with those of mediocre souls deserve these\nhigh names, that greatness and happiness are comparative terms, and that\nthere is nothing to be said of the estate of man except relatively. This\nmoralist was Vauvenargues.\n\nVauvenargues was born of a good Provencal stock at Aix, in the year\n1715. He had scarcely any of that kind of education which is usually\nperformed in school-classes, and he was never able to read either Latin\nor Greek. Such slight knowledge as he ever got of the famous writers\namong the ancients was in translations. Of English literature, though\nits influence and that of our institutions were then becoming paramount\nin France, and though he had a particular esteem for the English\ncharacter, he knew only the writings of Locke and Pope, and the Paradise\nLost.[4] Vauvenargues must be added to the list of thinkers and writers\nwhose personal history shows, what men of letters sometimes appear to be\nin a conspiracy to make us forget, that for sober, healthy, and robust\njudgment on human nature and life, active and sympathetic contact with\nmen in the transaction of the many affairs of their daily life is a\nbetter preparation than any amount of wholly meditative seclusion. He is\nalso one of the many who show that a weakly constitution of body is not\nincompatible with fine and energetic qualities of mind, even if it be\nnot actually friendly to them. Nor was feeble health any\ndisqualification for the profession of arms. As Arms and the Church were\nthe only alternatives for persons of noble birth, Vauvenargues, choosing\nthe former, became a subaltern in the King's Own Regiment at the age of\ntwenty (1735). Here in time he saw active service; for in 1740 the death\nof Charles VI. threw all Europe into confusion, and the French\nGovernment, falling in with the prodigious designs of the Marshal\nBelle-Isle and his brother, took sides against Maria Theresa, and\nsupported the claims of the unhappy Elector of Bavaria who afterwards\nbecame the Emperor Charles VII. The disasters which fell upon France in\nconsequence are well known. The forces despatched to Bavaria and\nBohemia, after the brief triumph of the capture of Prague, were\ngradually overwhelmed without a single great battle, and it was\nconsidered a signal piece of good fortune when in the winter of 1742-43\nBelle-Isle succeeded, with a loss of half his force, in leading by a\nlong circuit, in the view of the enemy, and amid the horrors of famine\nand intense frost, some thirteen thousand men away from Prague. The\nKing's Regiment took part in the Bohemian campaign, and in this\nfrightful march which closed it; Vauvenargues with the rest.\n\nTo physical sufferings during two winters was added the distress of\nlosing a comrade to whom he was deeply attached; he perished in the\nspring of '42 under the hardships of the war. The _Eloge_ in which\nVauvenargues commemorates the virtues and the pitiful fate of his\nfriend, is too deeply marked with the florid and declamatory style of\nyouth to be pleasing to a more ripened taste.[5] He complained that\nnobody who had read it observed that it was touching, not remembering\nthat even the most tender feeling fails to touch us, when it has found\nstilted and turgid expression. Delicacy and warmth of affection were\nprominent characteristics in Vauvenargues. Perhaps if his life had been\npassed in less severe circumstances, this fine susceptibility might have\nbecome fanciful and morbid. As it was, he loved his friends with a\ncertain patient sweetness and equanimity, in which there was never the\nfaintest tinge of fretfulness, caprice, exacting vanity, or any of those\nother vices which betray in men that excessive consciousness of their\nown personality, which lies at the root of most of the obstacles in the\nway of an even and humane life. His nature had such depth and quality\nthat the perpetual untowardness of circumstances left no evil print upon\nhim; hardship made him not sour, but patient and wise, and there is no\nsurer sign of noble temper.\n\nThe sufferings and bereavements of war were not his only trials.\nVauvenargues was beset throughout the whole of his short life with the\nsordid and humiliating embarrassments of narrow means. His letters to\nSaint-Vincens, the most intimate of his friends, disclose the straits to\nwhich he was driven. The nature of these straits is an old story all\nover the world, and Vauvenargues did the same things that young men in\nwant of money have generally done. It cannot be said, I fear, that he\npassed along those miry ways without some defilement. He bethinks him on\none occasion that a rich neighbour has daughters. 'Why should I not\nundertake to marry one of them within two years, with a reasonable\ndowry, if he would lend me the money I want and provided I should not\nhave repaid it by the time fixed?'[6] We must make allowance for the\nyouth of the writer, and for a different view of marriage and its\nsignificance from our own. Even then there remains something to regret.\nPoverty, wrote Vauvenargues, in a maxim smacking unwontedly of\ncommonplace, cannot debase strong souls, any more than riches can\nelevate low souls.[7] That depends. If poverty means pinching and\nfretting need of money, it may not debase the soul in any vital sense,\nbut it is extremely likely to wear away a very priceless kind of\ndelicacy in a man's estimate of human relations and their import.\n\nVauvenargues has told us what he found the life of the camp. Luxurious\nand indolent living, neglected duties, discontented sighing after the\ndelights of Paris, the exaltation of rank and mediocrity, an insolent\ncontempt for merit; these were the characteristics of the men in high\nmilitary place. The lower officers meantime were overwhelmed by an\nexpenditure that the luxury of their superiors introduced and\nencouraged; and they were speedily driven to retire by the disorder of\ntheir affairs, or by the impossibility of promotion, because men of\nspirit could not long endure the sight of flagrant injustice, and\nbecause those who labour for fame cannot tie themselves to a condition\nwhere there is nothing to be gathered but shame and humiliation.[8]\n\nTo these considerations of an extravagant expenditure and the absence of\nevery chance of promotion, there was added in the case of Vauvenargues\nthe still more powerful drawback of irretrievably broken health. The\nwinter-march from Prague to Egra had sown fatal seed. His legs had been\nfrost-bitten, and before they could be cured he was stricken by\nsmall-pox, which left him disfigured and almost blind. So after a\nservice of nine years, he quitted military life (1744). He vainly\nsolicited employment as a diplomatist. The career was not yet open to\nthe talents, and in the memorial which Vauvenargues drew up he dwelt\nless on his conduct than on his birth, being careful to show that he had\nan authentic ancestor who was Governor of Hyeres in the early part of\nthe fourteenth century.[9] But the only road to employment lay through\nthe Court. The claims even of birth counted for nothing, unless they\nwere backed by favour among the ignoble creatures who haunted\nVersailles. For success it was essential to be not only high-born, but a\nparasite as well. 'Permit me to assure you, sir,' Vauvenargues wrote\ncourageously to Amelot, then the minister, 'that it is this moral\nimpossibility for a gentleman, with only zeal to commend him, of ever\nreaching the King his master, which causes the discouragement that is\nobserved among the nobility of the provinces, and which extinguishes all\nambition.'[10] Amelot, to oblige Voltaire, eager as usual in good\noffices for his friend, answered the letters which Vauvenargues wrote,\nand promised to lay his name before the King as soon as a favourable\nopportunity should present itself.[11]\n\nVauvenargues was probably enough of a man of the world to take fair\nwords of this sort at their value, and he had enough of qualities that\ndo not belong to the man of the world to enable him to confront the\ndisappointment with cheerful fortitude 'Misfortune itself,' he had once\nwritten, 'has its charms in great extremities; for this opposition of\nfortune raises a courageous mind, and makes it collect all the forces\nthat before were unemployed: it is in indolence and littleness that\nvirtue suffers, when a timid prudence prevents it from rising in flight\nand forces it to creep along in bonds.'[12] He was true to the counsel\nwhich he had thus given years before, and with the consciousness that\ndeath was rapidly approaching, and that all hope of advancement in the\nordinary way was at an end, even if there were any chance of his life,\nhe persevered in his project of going to Paris, there to earn the fame\nwhich he instinctively felt that he had it in him to achieve. Neither\nscantiness of means nor the vehement protests of friends and\nrelations--always the worst foes to superior character on critical\noccasions--could detain him in the obscurity of Provence. In 1745 he\ntook up his quarters in Paris in a humble house near the School of\nMedicine. Literature had not yet acquired that importance in France\nwhich it was so soon to obtain. The Encyclopaedia was still unconceived,\nand the momentous work which that famous design was to accomplish, of\norganising the philosophers and men of letters into an army with\nbanners, was still unexecuted. Voltaire, indeed, had risen, if not to\nthe full height of his reputation, yet high enough both to command the\nadmiration of people of quality, and to be the recognised chief of the\nnew school of literature and thought. Voltaire had been struck by a\nletter in which Vauvenargues, then unknown to him, had sent a criticism\ncomparing Corneille disadvantageously with Racine. Coming from a young\nofficer, the member of a profession which Voltaire frankly described as\n'very noble, in truth, but slightly barbarous,' this criticism was\npeculiarly striking. A great many years afterwards Voltaire was\nsurprised in the same way, to find that an officer could write such a\nbook as the _Felicite Publique_ of the Marquis de Chastellux. To\nVauvenargues he replied with many compliments, and pointed out with a\ngood deal of pains the injustice which the young critic had done to the\ngreat author of _Cinna_. '_It is the part of a man like you,_' he said\nadmirably, '_to have preferences, but no exclusions._'[13] The\ncorrespondence thus begun was kept up with ever-growing warmth and\nmutual respect. 'If you had been born a few years earlier,' Voltaire\nwrote to him, 'my works would be worth all the more for it; but at any\nrate, even at the close of my career, you confirm me in the path that\nyou pursue.'[14]\n\nThe personal impression was as fascinating as that which had been\nconveyed by Vauvenargues' letters. Voltaire took every opportunity of\nvisiting his unfortunate friend, then each day drawing nearer to the\ngrave. Men of humbler stature were equally attracted. 'It was at this\ntime,' says the light-hearted Marmontel, 'that I first saw at home the\nman who had a charm for me beyond all the rest of the world, the good,\nthe virtuous, the wise Vauvenargues. Cruelly used by nature in his body,\nhe was in soul one of her rarest masterpieces. I seemed to see in him\nFenelon weak and suffering. I could make a good book of his\nconversations, if I had had a chance of collecting them. You see some\ntraces of it in the selection that he has left of his thoughts and\nmeditations. But all eloquent and full of feeling as he is in his\nwritings, he was even more so still in his conversation.'[15] Marmontel\nfelt sincere grief when Vauvenargues died, and in the _Epistle to\nVoltaire_ expressed his sorrow in some fair lines. They contain the\nhappy phrase applied to Vauvenargues, '_ce coeur stoique et\ntendre_.'[16]\n\nIn religious sentiment Vauvenargues was out of the groove of his time.\nThat is to say, he was not unsusceptible of religion. Accepting no\ndogma, so far as we can judge, and complying with no observances, very\nfaint and doubtful as to even the fundamentals--God, immortality, and\nthe like--he never partook of the furious and bitter antipathy of the\nbest men of that century against the church, its creeds, and its book.\nAt one time, as will be seen from a passage which will be quoted by and\nby, his leanings were towards that vague and indefinable doctrine which\nidentifies God with all the forces and their manifestations in the\nuniverse. Afterwards even this adumbration of a theistic explanation of\nthe world seems to have passed from him, and he lived, as many other not\nbad men have lived, with that fair working substitute for a religious\ndoctrine which is provided in the tranquil search, or the acceptance in\na devotional spirit, of all larger mortal experiences and higher human\nimpressions. There is a _Meditation on the Faith_, including a _Prayer_,\namong his writings; and there can be little doubt, in spite of\nCondorcet's incredible account of the circumstances of its composition,\nthat it is the expression of what was at the time a sincere feeling.[17]\nIt is, however, rather the straining and ecstatic rhapsody of one who\nardently seeks faith, than the calm and devout assurance of him who\nalready possesses it. Vauvenargues was religious by temperament, but he\ncould not entirely resist the intellectual influences of the period. The\none fact delivered him from dogma and superstition, and the other from\nscoffing and harsh unspirituality. He saw that apart from the question\nof the truth or falsehood of its historic basis, there was a balance to\nbe struck between the consolations and the afflictions of the faith.[18]\nPractically he was content to leave this balance unstruck, and to pass\nby on the other side. Scarcely any of his maxims concern religion. One\nof these few is worth quoting, where he says: 'The strength or weakness\nof our belief depends more on our courage than our light; not all those\nwho mock at auguries have more intellect than those who believe in\nthem.'[19]\n\nThe end came in the spring of 1747, when Vauvenargues was no more than\nthirty-two. Perhaps, in spite of his physical miseries, these two years\nin Paris were the least unhappy time in his life. He was in the great\ncentre where the fame which he longed for was earned and liberally\nawarded. A year of intercourse with so full and alert and brilliant a\nmind as Voltaire's, must have been more to one so appreciative of mental\ngreatness as Vauvenargues, than many years of intercourse with\nsubalterns in the Regiment of the King. With death, now known to be very\nnear at hand, he had made his account before. 'To execute great things,'\nhe had written in a maxim which gained the lively praise of Voltaire, 'a\nman must live as though he had never to die.'[20] This mood was common\namong the Greeks and Romans; but the religion which Europe accepted in\nthe time of its deepest corruption and depravation, retained the mark of\nits dismal origin nowhere so strongly as in the distorted prominence\nwhich it gave in the minds of its votaries to the dissolution of the\nbody. It was one of the first conditions of the Revival of Reason that\nthe dreary _memento mori_ and its hateful emblems should be deliberately\neffaced. 'The thought of death,' said Vauvenargues, 'leads us astray,\nbecause it makes us forget to live.' He did not understand living in the\nsense which the dissolute attach to it. The libertinism of his regiment\ncalled no severe rebuke from him, but his meditative temper drew him\naway from it even in his youth. It is not impossible that if his days\nhad not been cut short, he might have impressed Parisian society with\nideas and a sentiment, that would have left to it all its cheerfulness,\nand yet prevented that laxity which so fatally weakened it. Turgot, the\nonly other conspicuous man who could have withstood the license of the\ntime, had probably too much of that austerity which is in the fibre of\nso many great characters, to make any moral counsels that he might have\ngiven widely effective.\n\nVauvenargues was sufficiently free from all taint of the pedagogue or\nthe preacher to have dispelled the sophisms of licence, less by argument\nthan by the gracious attraction of virtue in his own character. The\nstock moralist, like the commonplace orator of the pulpit, fails to\ntouch the hearts of men or to affect their lives, for lack of delicacy,\nof sympathy, and of freshness; he attempts to compensate for this by\nexcess of emphasis, and that more often disgusts us than persuades.\nVauvenargues, on the other hand, is remarkable for delicacy and\nhalf-reserved tenderness. Everything that he has said is coloured and\nwarmed with feeling for the infirmities of men. He writes not merely as\nan analytical outsider. Hence, unlike most moralists, he is no satirist.\nHe had borne the burdens. 'The looker-on,' runs one of his maxims,\n'softly lying in a carpeted chamber, inveighs against the soldier, who\npasses winter nights on the river's edge, and keeps watch in silence\nover the safety of the land.'[21] Vauvenargues had been something very\ndifferent from the safe and sheltered critic of other men's battles,\nand this is the secret of the hold which his words have upon us. They\nare real, with the reality that can only come from two sources; from\nhigh poetic imagination, which Vauvenargues did not possess, or else\nfrom experience of life acting on and strengthening a generous nature.\n'The cause of most books of morality being so insipid,' he says, 'is\nthat their authors are not sincere; is that, being feeble echoes of one\nanother, they could not venture to publish their own real maxims and\nprivate sentiments.'[22] One of the secrets of his own freedom from this\nordinary insipidity of moralists was his freedom also from their\npretentiousness and insincerity.\n\nBesides these positive merits, he had, as we have said, the negative\ndistinction of never being emphatic. His sayings are nearly always\nmoderate and persuasive, alike in sentiment and in phrase. Sometimes\nthey are almost tentative in the diffidence of their turn. Compared with\nhim La Rochefoucauld's manner is hard, and that of La Bruyere\nsententious. In the moralist who aspires to move and win men by their\nbest side instead of their worst, the absence of this hardness and the\npresence of a certain lambency and play even in the exposition of truths\nof perfect assurance, are essential conditions of psychagogic quality.\nIn religion such law does not hold, and the contagion of fanaticism is\nusually most rapidly spread by a rigorous and cheerless example.\n\nWe may notice in passing that Vauvenargues has the defects of his\nqualities, and that with his aversion to emphasis was bound up a certain\ninability to appreciate even grandeur and originality, if they were too\nstrongly and boldly marked. 'It is easy to criticise an author,' he has\nsaid, 'but hard to estimate him.'[23] This was never more unfortunately\nproved than in the remarks of Vauvenargues himself upon the great\nMoliere. There is almost a difficulty in forgiving a writer who can say\nthat 'La Bruyere, animated with nearly the same genius, painted the\ncrookedness of men with as much truth and as much force as Moliere; but\nI believe that there is more eloquence and more elevation to be found in\nLa Bruyere's images.'[24] Without at all undervaluing La Bruyere, one of\nthe acutest and finest of writers, we may say that this is a truly\ndisastrous piece of criticism. Quite as unhappy is the preference given\nto Racine over Moliere, not merely for the conclusion arrived at, but\nfor the reasons on which it is founded. Moliere's subjects, we read, are\nlow, his language negligent and incorrect, his characters bizarre and\neccentric. Racine, on the other hand, takes sublime themes, presents us\nwith noble types, and writes with simplicity and elegance. It is not\nenough to concede to Racine the glory of art, while giving to Moliere or\nCorneille the glory of genius. 'When people speak of the art of\nRacine--the art which puts things in their place; which characterises\nmen, their passions, manners, genius; which banishes obscurities,\nsuperfluities, false brilliancies; which paints nature with fire,\nsublimity, and grace--what can we think of such art as this, except that\nit is the genius of extraordinary men, and the origin of those rules\nthat writers without genius embrace with so much zeal and so little\nsuccess?'[25] And it is certainly true that the art of Racine implied\ngenius. The defect of the criticism lies, as usual, in a failure to see\nthat there is glory enough in both; in the art of highly-finished\ncomposition and presentation, and in the art of bold and striking\ncreation. Yet Vauvenargues was able to discern the secret of the\npopularity of Moliere, and the foundation of the common opinion that no\nother dramatist had carried his own kind of art so far as Moliere had\ncarried his; 'the reason is, I fancy, that he is more natural than any\nof the others, and this is an important lesson for everybody who wishes\nto write.'[26] He did not see how nearly everything went in this\nconcession, that Moliere was, above all, natural. With equal truth of\nperception he condemned the affectation of grandeur lent by the French\ntragedians to classical personages who were in truth simple and natural,\nas the principal defect of the national drama, and the common rock on\nwhich their poets made shipwreck.[27] Let us, however, rejoice for the\nsake of the critical reputation of Vauvenargues that he was unable to\nread Shakespeare. One for whom Moliere is too eccentric, grotesque,\ninelegant, was not likely to do much justice to the mightiest but most\nirregular of all dramatists.\n\nA man's prepossessions in dramatic poetry, supposing him to be\ncultivated enough to have any prepossessions, furnish the most certain\nclue that we can get to the spirit in which he inwardly regards\ncharacter and conduct. The uniform and reasoned preference which\nVauvenargues had for Racine over Moliere and Corneille, was only the\ntransfer to art of that balanced, moderate, normal, and emphatically\nharmonious temper, which he brought to the survey of human nature.\nExcess was a condition of thought, feeling, and speech, that in every\nform was disagreeable to him; alike in the gloom of Pascal's reveries,\nand in the inflation of speech of some of the heroes of Corneille. He\nfailed to relish even Montaigne as he ought to have done, because\nMontaigne's method was too prolix, his scepticism too universal, his\negoism too manifest, and because he did not produce complete and\nartistic wholes.[28]\n\nReasonableness is the strongest mark in Vauvenargues' thinking; balance,\nevenness, purity of vision, penetration finely toned with indulgence. He\nis never betrayed into criticism of men from the point of view of\nimmutable first principles. Perhaps this was what the elder Mirabeau\nmeant when he wrote to Vauvenargues, who was his cousin: 'You have the\nEnglish genius to perfection,' and what Vauvenargues meant when he wrote\nof himself to Mirabeau: 'Nobody in the world has a mind less French than\nI.'[29] These international comparisons are among the least fruitful of\nliterary amusements, even when they happen not to be extremely\nmisleading; as when, for example, Voltaire called Locke the English\nPascal, a description which can only be true on condition that the\nqualifying adjective is meant to strip either Locke or Pascal of most of\nhis characteristic traits. And if we compare Vauvenargues with any of\nour English aphoristic writers, there is not resemblance enough to make\nthe contrast instructive. The obvious truth is that in this department\nour literature is particularly weak, while French literature is\nparticularly strong in it. With the exception of Bacon, we have no\nwriter of apophthegms of the first order; and the difference between\nBacon as a moralist and Pascal or Vauvenargues, is the difference\nbetween Polonius's famous discourse to Laertes and the soliloquy of\nHamlet.\n\nBacon's precepts refer rather to external conduct and worldly fortune\nthan to the inner composition of character, or to the 'wide, gray,\nlampless' depths of human destiny. We find the same national\ncharacteristic, though on an infinitely lower level, in Franklin's\noracular saws. Among the French sages a psychological element is\npredominant, as well as an occasional transcendent loftiness of feeling,\nnot to be found in Bacon's wisest maxims, and from his point of view in\ntheir composition we could not expect to find them there. We seek in\nvain amid the positivity of Bacon, or the quaint and timorous paradox of\nBrowne, or the acute sobriety of Shaftesbury, for any of that poetic\npensiveness which is strong in Vauvenargues, and reaches tragic heights\nin Pascal.[30] Addison may have the delicacy of Vauvenargues, but it is\na delicacy that wants the stir and warmth of feeling. It seems as if\nwith English writers poetic sentiment naturally sought expression in\npoetic forms, while the Frenchmen of nearly corresponding temperament\nwere restrained within the limits of prose by reason of the vigorously\nprescribed stateliness and stiffness of their verse at that time. A man\nin this country with the quality of Vauvenargues, with his delicacy,\ntenderness, elevation, would have composed lyrics. We have undoubtedly\nlost much by the laxity and irregularity of our verse, but as\nundoubtedly we owe to its freedom some of the most perfect and\ndelightful of the minor figures that adorn the noble gallery of English\npoets.\n\nIt would be an error to explain the superiority of the great French\nmoralists by supposing in them a fancy and imagination too defective for\npoetic art. It was the circumstances of the national literature during\nthe seventeenth and eighteenth centuries which made Vauvenargues for\ninstance a composer of aphorisms, rather than a moral poet like Pope.\nLet us remember some of his own most discriminating words. 'Who has more\nimagination,' he asks, 'than Bossuet, Montaigne, Descartes, Pascal, all\nof them great philosophers? Who more judgment and wisdom than Racine,\nBoileau, La Fontaine, Moliere, all of them poets full of genius? _It is\nnot true, then, that the ruling qualities exclude the others; on the\ncontrary, they suppose them._ I should be much surprised if a great poet\nwere without vivid lights on philosophy, at any rate moral philosophy,\nand it will very seldom happen for a true philosopher to be totally\ndevoid of imagination.'[31] With imagination in the highest sense\nVauvenargues was not largely endowed, but he had as much as is essential\nto reveal to one that the hard and sober-judging faculty is not the\nsingle, nor even the main element, in a wise and full intelligence. 'All\nmy philosophy,' he wrote to Mirabeau, when only four or five and twenty\nyears old, an age when the intellect is usually most exigent of\nsupremacy, 'all my philosophy has its source in my heart.'[32]\n\nIn the same spirit he had well said that there is more cleverness in the\nworld than greatness of soul, more people with talent than with lofty\ncharacter.[33] Hence some of the most peculiarly characteristic and\nimpressive of his aphorisms; that famous one, for instance, '_Great\nthoughts come from the heart,_' and the rest which hang upon the same\nidea. 'Virtuous instinct has no need of reason, but supplies it.'\n'Reason misleads us more often than nature.' 'Reason does not know the\ninterests of the heart.' 'Perhaps we owe to the passions the greatest\nadvantages of the intellect.' Such sayings are only true on condition\nthat instinct and nature and passion have been already moulded under the\ninfluence of reason; just as this other saying, which won the warm\nadmiration of Voltaire, '_Magnanimity owes no account of its motives to\nprudence_,' is only true on condition that by magnanimity we understand\na mood not out of accord with the loftiest kind of prudence.[34] But in\nthe eighteenth century reason and prudence were words current in their\nlower and narrower sense, and thus one coming like Vauvenargues to see\nthis lowness and narrowness, sought to invest ideas and terms that in\nfact only involved modifications of these, with a significance of direct\nantagonism. Magnanimity was contrasted inimically with prudence, and\ninstinct and nature were made to thrust from their throne reason and\nreflection. Carried to its limit, this tendency developed the\nspeculative and social excesses of the great sentimental school. In\nVauvenargues it was only the moderate, just, and most seasonable protest\nof a fine observer, against the supremacy among ideals of a narrow,\ndeliberative, and calculating spirit.\n\nHis exaltation of virtuous instinct over reason is in a curious way\nparallel to Burke's memorable exaltation over reason of prejudice.\n'Prejudice,' said Burke, 'previously engages the mind in a steady course\nof wisdom and virtue, and does not leave the man hesitating in the\nmoment of decision, sceptical, puzzled, and unresolved. Prejudice\nrenders a man's virtue his habit, and not a series of unconnected acts;\nthrough just prejudice his duty becomes a part of his nature.'[35] What\nBurke designated as prejudice, Vauvenargues less philosophically styled\nvirtuous instinct; each meant precisely the same thing, though the\ndifference of phrase implied a different view of its origin and growth:\nand the side opposite to each of them was the same--namely, a\nsophisticated and over-refining intelligence, narrowed to the\nconsideration of particular circumstances as they presented themselves.\n\nTranslated into the modern equivalent, the heart, nature, instinct of\nVauvenargues all mean _character_. He insisted upon spontaneous impulse\nas a condition of all greatest thought and action. Men think and work on\nthe highest level when they move without conscious and deliberate strain\nafter virtue: when, in other words, their habitual motives, aims,\nmethods, their character, in short, naturally draw them into the region\nof what is virtuous. '_It is by our ideas that we ennoble our passions\nor we debase them; they rise high or sink low according to the man's\nsoul_.'[36] All this has ceased to be new to our generation, but a\nhundred and thirty years ago, and indeed much nearer to us than that,\nthe key to all nobleness was thought to be found only by cool balancing\nand prudential calculation. A book like _Clarissa Harlowe_ shows us this\nprudential and calculating temper underneath a varnish of\nsentimentalism and fine feelings, an incongruous and extremely\ndispleasing combination, particularly characteristic of certain sets and\ncircles in that century. One of the distinctions of Vauvenargues is that\nexaltation of sentiment did not with him cloak a substantial adherence\nto a low prudence, nor to that fragment of reason which has so\nconstantly usurped the name and place of the whole. He eschewed the too\ncommon compromise which the sentimentalist makes with reflection and\ncalculation, and it was this which saved him from being a\nsentimentalist.\n\nThat doctrine of the predominance of the heart over the head, which has\nbrought forth so many pernicious and destructive fantasies in the\nhistory of social thought, represented in his case no more than a\nreaction against the great detractors of humanity. Rochefoucauld had\nsurveyed mankind exclusively from the point of their vain and egoistic\npropensities, and his aphorisms are profoundly true of all persons in\nwhom these propensities are habitually supreme, and of all the world in\nso far as these propensities happen to influence them. Pascal, on the\none hand, leaving the affections and inclinations of a man very much on\none side, had directed all his efforts to showing the pitiful feebleness\nand incurable helplessness of man in the sphere of the understanding.\nVauvenargues is thus confronted by two sinister pictures of\nhumanity--the one of its moral meanness and littleness, the other of its\nintellectual poverty and impotency. He turned away from both of them,\nand found in magnanimous and unsophisticated feeling, of which he was\nconscious in himself and observant in others, a compensation alike for\nthe selfishness of some men and the intellectual limitations of all men.\nThis compensation was ample enough to restore the human self-respect\nthat Pascal and Rochefoucauld had done their best to weaken.\n\nThe truth in that disparagement was indisputable so far as it went. It\nwas not a kind of truth, however, on which it is good for the world much\nto dwell, and it is the thinkers like Vauvenargues who build up and\ninspire high resolve. 'Scarcely any maxim,' runs one of his own, 'is\ntrue in all respects.'[37] We must take them in pairs to find out the\nmean truth; and to understand the ways of men, so far as words about men\ncan help us, we must read with appreciation not only Vauvenargues, who\nsaid that great thoughts come from the heart, but La Rochefoucauld, who\ncalled the intelligence the dupe of the heart, and Pascal, who saw only\ndesperate creatures, miserably perishing before one another's eyes in\nthe grim dungeon of the universe. Yet it is the observer in the spirit\nof Vauvenargues, of whom we must always say that he has chosen the\nbetter part. Vauvenargues' own estimate was sound. 'The Duke of La\nRochefoucauld seized to perfection the weak side of human nature; maybe\nhe knew its strength too; and only contested the merit of so many\nsplendid actions in order to unmask false wisdom. Whatever his design,\nthe effect seems to me mischievous; his book, filled with delicate\ninvective against hypocrisy, even to this day turns men away from\nvirtue, by persuading them that it is never genuine.'[38] Or, as he put\nit elsewhere, without express personal reference: 'You must arouse in\nmen the feeling of their prudence and strength, if you would raise their\ncharacter; those who only apply themselves to bring out the absurdities\nand weaknesses of mankind, enlighten the judgment of the public far less\nthan they deprave its inclination.'[39] This principle was implied in\nGoethe's excellent saying, that if you would improve a man, it is best\nto begin by persuading him that he is already that which you would have\nhim to be.\n\nTo talk in this way was to bring men out from the pits which cynicism on\nthe one side, and asceticism on the other, had dug so deep for them,\nback to the warm precincts of the cheerful day. The cynic and the\nascetic had each looked at life through a microscope, exaggerating\nblemishes, distorting proportions, filling the eye with ugly and\ndisgusting illusions.[40] Humanity, as was said, was in disgrace with\nthe thinkers. The maxims of Vauvenargues were a plea for a return to a\nhealthy and normal sense of relations. 'These philosophers,' he cried,\n'are men, yet they do not speak in human language; they change all the\nideas of things, and misuse all their terms.'[41] These are some of the\nmost direct of his retorts upon Pascal and La Rochefoucauld:\n\n'I have always felt it to be absurd for philosophers to fabricate a\nVirtue that is incompatible with the nature of humanity, and then after\nhaving pretended this, to declare coldly that there is no virtue. If\nthey are speaking of the phantom of their imagination, they may of\ncourse abandon or destroy it as they please, for they invented it; but\ntrue virtue--which they cannot be brought to call by this name, because\nit is not in conformity with their definitions; which is the work of\nnature and not their own; and which consists mainly in goodness and\nvigour of soul--that does not depend on their fancies, and will last\nfor ever with characters that cannot possibly be effaced.'\n\n'The body has its graces, the intellect its talents; is the heart then\nto have nothing but vices? And must man, who is capable of reason, be\nincapable of virtue?'\n\n'We are susceptible of friendship, justice, humanity, compassion, and\nreason. O my friends, what then is virtue?'\n\n'Disgust is no mark of health, nor is appetite a disorder; quite the\nreverse. Thus we think of the body, but we judge the soul on other\nprinciples. We suppose that a strong soul is one that is exempt from\npassions, and as youth is more active and ardent than later age, we look\non it as a time of fever, and place the strength of man in his\ndecay.'[42]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe theological speculator insists that virtue lies in a constant and\nfierce struggle between the will and the passions, between man and human\nnature.\n\nVauvenargues founded his whole theory of life on the doctrine that the\nwill is not something independent of passions, inclinations, and ideas,\nbut on the contrary is a mere index moved and fixed by them, as the hand\nof a clock follows the operation of the mechanical forces within.\nCharacter is an integral unit. 'Whether it is reason or passion that\nmoves us, it is we who determine ourselves; it would be madness to\ndistinguish one's thoughts and sentiments from one's self.... No will in\nmen, which does not owe its direction to their temperament, their\nreasoning, and their actual feelings.'[43] Virtue, then, is not\nnecessarily a condition of strife between the will and the rest of our\nfaculties and passions; no such strife is possible, for the will obeys\nthe preponderant passion or idea, or group of passions and ideas; and\nthe contest lies between one passion or group and another. Hence, in\nright character there is no struggle at all, for the virtuous\ninclinations naturally and easily direct our will and actions; virtue is\nthen independent of struggle; and the circumstance of our finding\npleasure in this or that practice, is no reason why both the practice\nand the pleasure should not be unimpeachably virtuous.\n\nIt is easy to see the connection between this theory of the dependence\nof the will, and the prominence which Vauvenargues is ever giving to the\npassions. These are the key to the movements of the will. To direct and\nshape the latter, you must educate the former. It was for his perception\nof this truth, we may notice in passing, that Comte awarded to\nVauvenargues a place in the Positivist Calendar; 'for his direct effort,\nin spite of the universal desuetude into which it had fallen, to\nreorganise the culture of the heart according to a better knowledge of\nhuman nature, of which this noble thinker discerned the centre to be\naffective.'[44]\n\nThis theory of the will, however, was not allowed to rest here; the\nactivity of man was connected with the universal order. 'What prevents\nthe mind from perceiving the motive of its actions, is only their\ninfinite quickness. Our thoughts perish at the moment in which their\neffects make themselves known; when the action commences, the principle\nhas vanished; the will appears, the feeling is gone; we cannot find it\nourselves, and so doubt if we ever had it. But it would be an enormous\ndefect to have a will without a principle; our actions would be all\nhaphazard; the world would be nothing but caprice; all order would be\noverturned. It is not enough, then, to admit it to be true that it is\nreflection or sentiment that leads us: we must add further that it would\nbe monstrous for this to be otherwise.[45] ...\n\n'The will recalls or suspends our ideas; our ideas shape or vary the\nlaws of the will; the laws of the will are thus dependent on the laws of\ncreation; but the laws of creation are not foreign to ourselves, they\nconstitute our being, and form our essence, and are entirely our own,\nand we can say boldly that we act by ourselves, when we only act by\nthem.[46] ...\n\n'Let us recognise here, then, our profound subjection.... Let us rend\nthe melancholy veil which hides from our eyes the eternal chain of the\nworld and the glory of the Creator.... External objects form ideas in\nthe mind, these ideas form sentiments, these sentiments volitions, these\nvolitions actions in ourselves and outside of ourselves. So noble a\ndependence in all the parts of this vast universe must conduct our\nreflections to the unity of its principle; this subordination makes the\ntrue greatness of the beings subordinated. The excellence of man is in\nhis dependence; his subjection displays two marvellous images--the\ninfinite power of God, and the dignity of our own soul.... Man\nindependent would be an object of contempt; the feeling of his own\nimperfection would be his eternal torture. But the same feeling, when we\nadmit his dependence, is the foundation of his sweetest hope; it reveals\nto him the nothingness of finite good, and leads him back to his\nprinciple, which insists on joining itself to him, and which alone can\nsatisfy his desires in the possession of himself.'[47]\n\nVauvenargues showed his genuine healthiness not more by a plenary\nrejection of the doctrine of the incurable vileness and frenzy of man,\nthan by his freedom from the boisterous and stupid transcendental\noptimism which has too many votaries in our time. He would not have men\ntold that they are miserable earth-gnomes, the slaves of a black\ndestiny, but he still placed them a good deal lower than the angels. For\ninstance: 'We are too inattentive or too much occupied with ourselves,\nto get to the bottom of one another's characters; _whoever has watched\nmasks at a ball dancing together in a friendly manner, and joining hands\nwithout knowing who the others are, and then parting the moment\nafterwards never to meet again nor ever to regret, or be regretted, can\nform some idea of the world_.'[48] But then, as he said elsewhere: 'We\ncan be perfectly aware of our imperfection, without being humiliated by\nthe sight. _One of the noblest qualities of our nature is that we are\nable so easily to dispense with greater perfection._'[49] In all this we\nmark the large and rational humaneness of the new time, a tolerant and\nkindly and elevating estimate of men.\n\nThe faith in the natural and simple operation of virtue, without the aid\nof all sorts of valetudinarian restrictions, comes out on every\noccasion. The Trappist theory of the conditions of virtue found no\nquarter with him. Mirabeau for instance complained of the atmosphere of\nthe Court, as fatal to the practice of virtue. Vauvenargues replied that\nthe people there were doubtless no better than they should be, and that\nvice was dominant. 'So much the worse for those who have vices. But when\nyou are fortunate enough to possess virtue, it is, to my thinking, a\nvery noble ambition to lift up this same virtue in the bosom of\ncorruption, to make it succeed, to place it above all, to indulge and\ncontrol the passions without reproach, to overthrow the obstacles to\nthem, and to surrender yourself to the inclinations of an upright and\nmagnanimous heart, instead of combating or concealing them in retreat,\nwithout either satisfying or vanquishing them. I know nothing so weak\nand so vain as to flee before vices, or to hate them without measure;\nfor people only hate them by way of reprisal because they are afraid of\nthem, or else out of vengeance because these vices have played them some\nsorry turn; but a little loftiness of soul, some knowledge of the heart,\na gentle and tranquil humour, will protect you against the risk of being\neither surprised, or keenly wounded by them.'[50]\n\nThere is a tolerably obvious distinction between two principal ways of\nexamining character. One is a musing, subjective method of delineation,\nin which the various shades and windings seem to reveal themselves with\na certain spontaneity, and we follow many recesses and depths in the\nheart of another, such as only music stirs into consciousness in\nourselves. Besides this rarer poetic method, there is what may be\nstyled the diplomatist's method; it classifies characters objectively,\naccording to the kinds of outer conduct in which they manifest\nthemselves, and according to the best ways of approaching and dealing\nwith them. The second of these describes the spirit in which\nVauvenargues observed men. He is French, and not German, and belongs to\nthe eighteenth century, and not to the seventeenth or the nineteenth.\nHis _Characters_, very little known in this country, are as excellent as\nany work in this kind that we are acquainted with, or probably as\nexcellent as such work can be. They are real and natural, yet while\nabstaining as rigorously as Vauvenargues everywhere does from grotesque\nand extravagant traits, they avoid equally the vice of presenting the\nmere bald and sterile flats of character, which he that runs may read.\nAs we have said, he had the quality possessed by so few of those who\nwrite about men; he watched men, and drew from the life. In a word, he\nstudied concrete examples and interrogated his own experience--the only\nsure guarantee that one writing on his themes has anything which it is\nworth our while to listen to. Among other consequences of this reality\nof their source is the agreeable fact that these pictures are free from\nthat clever bitterness and easy sarcasm, by which crude and jejune\nobservers, thinking more of their own wit than of what they observe,\nsometimes gain a little reputation. Even the coxcombs, self-duping\nknaves, simpletons, braggarts, and other evil or pitiful types whom he\nselects, are drawn with unstrained and simple conformity to reality.\nThe pictures have no moral label pinned on to them. Yet Vauvenargues\ntook life seriously enough, and it was just because he took it\nseriously, that he had no inclination to air his wit or practise a\nverbal humour upon the stuff out of which happiness and misery are made.\n\nOne or two fragments will suffice. Take the Man of the World, for\ninstance:\n\n'A man of the world is not he who knows other men best, who has most\nforesight or dexterity in affairs, who is most instructed by experience\nand study; he is neither a good manager, nor a man of science, nor a\npolitician, nor a skilful officer, nor a painstaking magistrate. He is a\nman who is ignorant of nothing but who knows nothing; who, doing his own\nbusiness ill, fancies himself very capable of doing that of other\npeople; a man who has much useless wit, who has the art of saying\nflattering things which do not flatter, and judicious things which give\nno information; who can persuade nobody, though he speaks well; endowed\nwith that sort of eloquence which can bring out trifles, and which\nannihilates great subjects; as penetrating in what is ridiculous and\nexternal in men, as he is blind to the depths of their minds. One who,\nafraid of being wearisome by reason, is wearisome by his extravagances;\nis jocose without gaiety, and lively without passion.'[51]\n\nOr the two following, the Inconstant Man, and Lycas or the Firm Man:\n\n'Such a man seems really to possess more than one character. A powerful\nimagination makes his soul take the shape of all the objects that affect\nit; he suddenly astonishes the world by acts of generosity and courage\nwhich were never expected of him; the image of virtue inflames,\nelevates, softens, masters his heart; he receives the impression from\nthe loftiest, and he surpasses them. But when his imagination has grown\ncold, his courage droops, his generosity sinks; the vices opposed to\nthese virtues take possession of his soul, and after having reigned\nawhile supreme, they make way for other objects.... We cannot say that\nthey have a great nature, or strong, or weak, or light; it is a swift\nand imperious imagination which reigns with sovereign power over all\ntheir being, which subjugates their genius, and which prescribes for\nthem in turn those fine actions and those faults, those heights and\nthose littlenesses, those flights of enthusiasm and those fits of\ndisgust, which we are wrong in charging either with hypocrisy or\nmadness.'[52]\n\n'Lycas unites with a self-reliant, bold, and impetuous nature, a spirit\nof reflection and profundity which moderates the counsels of his\npassions, which leads him by inpenetrable motives, and makes him advance\nto his ends by many paths. He is one of those long-sighted men, who\nconsider the succession of events from afar off, who always finish a\ndesign begun; who are capable, I do not say of dissembling either a\nmisfortune or an offence, but of rising above either, instead of letting\nit depress them; deep natures, independent by their firmness in daring\nall and suffering all; who, whether they resist their inclinations out\nof foresight, or whether, out of pride and a secret consciousness of\ntheir resources, they defy what is called prudence, always, in good as\nin evil, cheat the acutest conjectures.'[53]\n\nLet us note that Vauvenargues is almost entirely free from that\nfavourite trick of the aphoristic person, which consists in forming a\nseries of sentences, the predicates being various qualifications of\nextravagance, vanity, and folly, and the subject being Women. He resists\nthis besetting temptation of the modern speaker of apophthegms to\nidentify woman and fool. On the one or two occasions in which he begins\nthe maxim with the fatal words, _Les femmes_, he is as little profound\nas other people who persist in thinking of man and woman as two\ndifferent species. 'Women,' for example, 'have ordinarily more vanity\nthan temperament, and more temperament than virtue'--which is fairly\ntrue of all human beings, and in so far as it is true, describes men\njust as exactly--and no more so--as it describes women. In truth,\nVauvenargues felt too seriously about conduct and character to go far in\nthis direction. Now and again he is content with a mere smartness, as\nwhen he says: 'There are some thoroughly excellent people who cannot get\nrid of their _ennui_ except at the expense of society.' But such a mood\nis not common. He is usually grave, and not seldom profoundly weighty,\ndelicate without being weak, and subtle without obscurity; as for\nexample:\n\n'People teach children to fear and obey; the avarice, pride, or timidity\nof the fathers, instructs the children in economy, arrogance, or\nsubmission. We stir them up to be yet more and more copyists, which they\nare only too disposed to be, as it is; nobody thinks of making them\noriginal, hardy, independent.'\n\n'If instead of dulling the vivacity of children, people did their best\nto raise the impulsiveness and movement of their characters, what might\nwe not expect from a fine natural temper?'\n\nAgain: 'The moderation of the weak is mediocrity.'\n\n'What is arrogance in the weak is elevation in the strong; as the\nstrength of a sick man is frenzy, and that of a whole man is vigour.'\n\n'To speak imprudently and to speak boldly are nearly always the same\nthing. But we may speak without prudence, and still speak what is right;\nand it is a mistake to fancy that a man has a shallow intelligence,\nbecause the boldness of his character or the liveliness of his temper\nmay have drawn from him, in spite of himself, some dangerous truth.'\n\n'It is a great sign of mediocrity always to praise moderately.'\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nVauvenargues has a saying to the effect that men very often, without\nthinking of it, form an idea of their face and expression from the\nruling sentiment of which they are conscious in themselves at the time.\nHe hints that this is perhaps the reason why a coxcomb always believes\nhimself to be handsome.[54] And in a letter to Mirabeau, he describes\npleasantly how sometimes in moments of distraction he pictures himself\nwith an air of loftiness, of majesty, of penetration, according to the\nidea that is occupying his mind, and how if by chance he sees his face\nin the mirror, he is nearly as much amazed as if he saw a Cyclops or a\nTartar.[55] Yet his nature, if we may trust the portrait, revealed\nitself in his face; it is one of the most delightful to look upon, even\nin the cold inarticulateness of an engraving, that the gallery of fair\nsouls contains for us. We may read the beauty of his character in the\nsoft strength of the brow, the meditative lines of mouth and chin, above\nall, the striking clearness, the self-collection, the feminine\nsolicitude, that mingle freely and without eagerness or expectancy in\nhis gaze, as though he were hearkening to some ever-flowing inward\nstream of divine melody. We think of that gracious touch in Bacon's\npicture of the father of Solomon's House, that 'he had an aspect as\nthough he pitied men.' If we reproach France in the eighteenth century\nwith its coarseness, artificiality, shallowness, because it produced\nsuch men as the rather brutish Duclos, we ought to remember that this\nwas also the century of Vauvenargues, one of the most tender, lofty,\ncheerful, and delicately sober of all moralists.\n\n\n[Footnote 1: _Pensees_, i. v. 8.]\n\n[Footnote 2: _Ib._ i. vi. 16.]\n\n[Footnote 3: _Ib._ i. vii. 6.]\n\n[Footnote 4: M. Gilbert's edition of the _Works and Correspondence of\nVauvenargues_ (2 vols. Paris: Furne, 1857), ii. 133.]\n\n[Footnote 5: _Eloge de P.H. de Seytres_. _OEuv._ i. 141-150.]\n\n[Footnote 6: _OEuv._ ii. 233. See too p. 267.]\n\n[Footnote 7: No. 579, i. 455.]\n\n[Footnote 8: _Reflexions sur Divers Sujets_, i. 104.]\n\n[Footnote 9: _OEuv._ ii. 249.]\n\n[Footnote 10: _Ib._ ii. 265.]\n\n[Footnote 11: _Ib._ ii. 266.]\n\n[Footnote 12: _Conseils a un Jeune Homme_, i. 124.]\n\n[Footnote 13: _OEuv._ ii. 252.]\n\n[Footnote 14: _Ib._ ii. 272.]\n\n[Footnote 15: _Memoires de Marmontel_, vol. i. 189.]\n\n[Footnote 16: The reader of Marmontel's _Memoires_ will remember the\nextraordinary and grotesque circumstances under which a younger brother\nof Mirabeau, (of _l'ami des hommes_, that is) appealed to the memory of\nVauvenargues. See vol. i. 256-260.]\n\n[Footnote 17: _OEuv._ i. 225-232.]\n\n[Footnote 18: _Letter to Saint-Vincens_, ii. 146.]\n\n[Footnote 19: No. 318.]\n\n[Footnote 20: Napoleon said on some occasion, '_Il faut vouloir vivre et\nsavoir mourir_.' M. Littre prefaces the third volume of that heroic\nmonument of learning and industry, his _Dictionary of the French\nLanguage_, by the words: 'He who wishes to employ his life seriously\nought always to act as if he had long to live, and to govern himself as\nif he would have soon to die.']\n\n[Footnote 21: No. 223.]\n\n[Footnote 22: No. 300.]\n\n[Footnote 23: No. 264.]\n\n[Footnote 24: _Reflexions Critiques sur quelques Poetes_, i. 237.]\n\n[Footnote 25: _OEuv_. i. 248.]\n\n[Footnote 26: _Reflexions Critiques sur quelques Poetes_, i. 238.]\n\n[Footnote 27: _OEuv._ i. 243.]\n\n[Footnote 28: _OEuv._ i. 275.]\n\n[Footnote 29: _Correspondance_. _OEuv._ ii. 131, 207.]\n\n[Footnote 30: Long-winded and tortuous and difficult to seize as\nShaftesbury is as a whole, in detached sentences he shows marked\naphoristic quality; _e.g._ 'The most ingenious way of becoming foolish\nis by a system;' 'The liker anything is to wisdom, if it be not plainly\nthe thing itself, the more directly it becomes its opposite.']\n\n[Footnote 31: No. 278 (i. 411).]\n\n[Footnote 32: _OEuv._ ii. 115.]\n\n[Footnote 33: _Ib._ i. 87.]\n\n[Footnote 34:\n                                     Doch\n    Zuweilen ist des Sinns in einer Sache\n    Auch mehr, als wir vermuthen; und es waere\n    So unerhoert doch nicht, dass uns der Heiland\n    Auf Wegen zu sich zoege, die der Kluge\n    Von selbst nicht leicht betreten wuerde.\n\n    _Nathan der Weise_, iii. 10.]\n\n[Footnote 35: _Reflections on the French Revolution_, Works (ed. 1842),\ni. 414.]\n\n[Footnote 36: _OEuv._ ii. 170.]\n\n[Footnote 37: No. 111.]\n\n[Footnote 38: _OEuv._ ii. 74.]\n\n[Footnote 39: No. 285.]\n\n[Footnote 40: 'A man may as well pretend to cure himself of love by\nviewing his mistress through the artificial medium of a microscope or\nprospect, and beholding there the coarseness of her skin and monstrous\ndisproportion of her features, as hope to excite or moderate any passion\nby the artificial arguments of a Seneca or an Epictetus.'--Hume's\n_Essays_ (xviii. _The Sceptic_).]\n\n[Footnote 41: _OEuv._ i. 163.]\n\n[Footnote 42: Nos. 296-298, 148.]\n\n[Footnote 43: _Sur le Libre Arbitre_. _OEuv._ i. 199.]\n\n[Footnote 44: _Politique Positive_, iii. 589.]\n\n[Footnote 45: _Ib._ i. 194.]\n\n[Footnote 46: _Politique Positive_, 205.]\n\n[Footnote 47: _Ib._ 206, 207.]\n\n[Footnote 48: No. 330.]\n\n[Footnote 49: Nos. 462, 463.]\n\n[Footnote 50: _Correspondance_. _OEuv._ ii. 163.]\n\n[Footnote 51: _OEuv._ i. 310.]\n\n[Footnote 52: _OEuv._ i. 325.]\n\n[Footnote 53: _OEuv._ i. 326.]\n\n[Footnote 54: No. 236.]\n\n[Footnote 55: _OEuv_. ii. 188.]","title":"Critical Miscellanies (Vol 2 of 3), Essay 1: Vauvenargues","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":10445}